The Magic Island
by Jet556
Summary: AU set in 1929. On a trip to Haiti, Detective Lee Ping and his fiancee Reporter Tina Kwee get caught up in the plot of a cult that has held the island in a grip of terror for more than three hundred years.


**Welcome everyone. I figure since its October, I'd do a horror themed AU fan fic. The title comes from "The Magic Island" by William Seabrook, which I made reference to back in "Strange Dreams." The plot comes from the 1932 film "White Zombie" which I also made reference to in "Strange Dreams." However things might change as I write and the plot might move far away from the plot to "White Zombie." There is already a bit of that with Basil's own original story. Enjoy.**

**Road Burial**

The year was 1929 and the place was Haiti. Haiti was an island of beauty, serenity, legends and mystery! It was the legends that had brought explorer Basil Hagen to Haiti. A young man with a horribly disfigured face, white hair, a crippled right leg and a blind left eye he covered with an eye patch.

That night, Basil shared a coach with a couple who were to be married. Lee Ping, a detective, and Tina Kwee, a reporter, had met Basil on the ship to Haiti. Always they'd want to socialize with him: the anti-social young man with an eye patch and that hobbled around on a crutch.

He just sat on his side of the coach looking at the couple. He clung to his crutch and luggage with an expressionless look on his face. He let go of his crutch at one point and got a sock out of his luggage. Basil then proceeded to tie the sock around his neck.

Lee couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. "Are you expecting a third foot to grow out of your neck?"

"Sore throat."

Lee nodded. "Of course, of course."

Basil then grabbed a bottle of honey from his luggage and a spoon. Lee and Tina didn't know where Basil had gotten his remedies for treating a sore throat and they weren't sure they wanted to. A madhouse probably!

Basil poured some honey into the spoon and then put it in his mouth. He didn't swallow the honey, he just at the coach ceiling.

Lee and Tina stared for a bit. Well, this was odd.

Tina cleared her throat. "So, I hear you're being called the Seabrook Wannabe." That was directed at Basil. He didn't say anything. He just stared at her. "The only thing you haven't gone for is cannibalism."

What was he to say? Say that he considered it but ultimately didn't want to cross that line? Or he could just ignore her.

Then the sound of chanting came to their ears. They all stuck their heads out of the windows to see what was going on.

There was a bunch of natives throwing flowers onto the dirt road. What on earth was this? Was this some sort of cult thing?

"It's a funeral, messieurs and mademoiselle!" said the coach driver.

A funeral? In the middle of the road? How strange! Basil exited the coach and hobbled on over to get a good look of what was going. The concept of burying someone in the middle of a road was alien to him. Why do that?

He turned to ask the coach driver a question only to find it driving away. And his luggage was still in there! Unbelievable! They were just going to abandon him in the middle of nowhere while some natives buried a poor soul in the middle of a public road!

Basil hobbled over to a boulder and sat down to watch the events before him. It was most strange. What manner of burial was this? Were all Haitian burials like this?

An old man walked towards Basil and took a seat next to him. "Curious, stranger?" Basil just nodded. "Ha, ha! Good man! I'd wager you've never seen a funeral like this!" Again Basil nodded. He wasn't in a talkative mood. "It is so the body is not stolen! Bury it in a public road and none of that will happen! No zombies will be created then!"

Zombies? Basil had heard about zombies from his mentor William Seabrook. According to him, the zombie was the most horrifying aspect of the voodoo belief, a corpse reanimated by magic, forced to carry out the will of the master magician while in a state of living death. Dear William had even claimed to have seen a zombie stalking through the fields one night by the light of the full moon. People had called William a lunatic and so it was that Basil had come to Haiti to prove his mentor sane. He would prove the existence of the zombie!


End file.
